An Intangible Pattern - Fate Bound.

The colour green

Rain beat steadily on the window, insulating them from the outside world. At some point they had traded the cold tiles of the kitchen floor for the softness of Noah's bed. She lay beside him, numb and exhausted. In the darkening gloom, Noah's voice came heavy with defeat.

"Say something." He begged.

She turned her head and looked into his face, reading the same roiling turmoil in his expression that had suffocated her: like a curse that lifted from one victim only when it could latch onto another.

I have done a bad thing to you. - She thought and reached out to touch his face.
Was that it? Was that what she wanted?
No, she hadn't intended to use his weakness to hurt him, she only wanted to forget herself... And yet, she was strangely comforted by his suffering, a bitter balm that was both poison and panacea: there was someone else who understood how she felt.

She lowered her hand to his chest and felt the steady thud of his heart, bleeding but still warm and alive.

"I'm sorry."

"What?" He said breathlessly.

"This was my fault this time."

He shook his head, tears welled up in his eyes. Unable to speak, he rolled over on his back and pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes.

She sat up and drew his hands away and her heart ached at the look on his face. His expression was desolate.

I did this. This time, I really did this.

All facets of Noah, the monster, the saviour, the saint and sinner coalesced into the broken man before her. She saw clearly the rift in his soul, between what he was and what he tried so hard to be; how the chasm loomed and threatened to swallow him. In that instant, she knew there were no Jekyll and Hyde, only a human stretched painfully between vastly distant poles of instinct and reason.

I have tried hating you and I have tried avoiding you, neither of which has brought me peace. Let me try understanding you.

She bent over him and gently stroked his hair. He convulsed and made a strangled sound, shrinking from her touch as though burned. Suddenly he began to strike his chest with vicious blows.

"Noah...Noah stop!" She cried, grabbing his hands. Though he could easily overpower her, he relented under her touch, his clenched fists shaking with the effort to stay still. She stretched out over his body to shield him from harming himself, instinctively understanding that he would not try to hurt her.

"Shhhh! It's alright. I'm alright. I asked you to."

"I can't..." He croaked.

"It's ok."

"I can't live like this.... I can't stand it."

Compassion overruled caution and she wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing his brow. He broke then, tears falling silently as he shook with suppressed sobs.

"Don't." He choked.

"It's ok."

"Don't, I don't deserve it."

"Shhh...just accept it."

"Fuck!"

He folded his arms around her waist and held on tightly, as though to a life raft.

"This isn't love," he whispered bitterly. "It isn't love, but I can't get you out of my head. I don't know you, I don't know so much as your favourite colour, but I can't stop! If I loved you, I could stop. I could put you first."

She soothed him, gently stroking his hair and kissing his face. Without intending to, her lips found their way to his mouth and kissed him softly. He groaned piteously and wrapped his fingers in her hair to prolong the connection. One action bled into another and she tenderly ushered him to take refuge in her body. They moved slowly, tentatively, as though to delay the moment when they would both have to feel anything other than this. When at last they could go on no longer, they lay intertwined in the dark, silent under the gravity of what had passed between them.

It was Alex who finally broke the silence: in a voice soft with encroaching sleep, she murmured, "It's green."

"Hmm?"

"My favourite colour is green."